


Time to Smile

by hinata22



Category: Naruto
Genre: Boys Kissing, Canon Divergence, Confession, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-19
Updated: 2020-07-19
Packaged: 2021-03-04 20:34:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25382428
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hinata22/pseuds/hinata22
Summary: Sasuke is on the verge of leaving the village forever. Naruto has other ideas.
Relationships: Uchiha Sasuke/Uzumaki Naruto
Comments: 14
Kudos: 117





	Time to Smile

**Author's Note:**

  * For [loverofgaydragons](https://archiveofourown.org/users/loverofgaydragons/gifts).



Sasuke didn’t allow himself to smile. Not yet. But there was something close to a calm in his heart. It was the closest he’d known to peace since that night.

That night when Itachi had slaughtered their parents. And everyone else he’d ever cared for. Apart from himself. If his brother had been an iota of the onisan he’d adored through all the sunshine years of his childhood, there was no possibility that he would have been able to continue living after the massacre. If there had been any goodness in Itachi he would have finished by slicing his sword through his own body. After he’d ended Sasuke obviously. Because no one who was ‘good’ would have left someone they cared for alone with nothing but nightmares and eternal screaming.

But Itachi wasn’t _good_. He could kill their whole clan and leave Sasuke alive to be tormented by their parents’ dead faces through all the remaining days of his existence.

For a long time, he’d lain awake wondering what he’d done to make Itachi hate him so much. And then on one starless night, he’d been struck by the fact that it didn’t matter what Itachi thought, or felt, or did. All that mattered was that he died. And that Sasuke was the one to kill him.

And he would be. He felt it as a certainty. He’d no longer be distracted. Leaving Konoha, training with Orochimaru, he would be strong enough. Finally.

He’d walked away from Kakashi’s advice. He’d left Sakura without a moment’s regret. Whatever tenuous hold these _comrades_ might have once had on him it was now broken. An unbidden memory appeared of when he’d instinctively protected Naruto in that fatal fight against Haku. If he’d died then there would have been no one left to get revenge. How could he have been so careless and stupid with his life? His mission superseded everything. What point was there in his surviving Itachi’s attack if he let himself be nothing more than a shield to Naruto’s stupidity and over confidence?

As if his meandering thoughts had summoned the brat, a voice growled behind him, ‘Teme.’

So here he was. The final member of Team 7 to try and dig his claws into Sasuke’s flesh and drag him backwards. Sasuke did smile now. At how hopeless they all were, how pathetic they all were. The only question he had had left, was why it had taken him so long to leave.

He kept moving forward at a pace that neither increased or decreased in response to Naruto’s arrival.

‘Teme,’ shouted out this time, loud enough for the nocturnal animals to scurry deeper into darkness away from Naruto’s booming anger.

There was a temptation to ask the dobe if this was all he had? How long did he plan to follow Sasuke screeching out the same word? But there was no reason to engage. That part of his life was over, behind him both literally and figuratively.

‘Teme!’

At this rate, Sasuke would have to react. He couldn’t disable Naruto as he had Sakura. It was a stone in his gut to admit that, but the whole point of this journey was to strip away all his self-deception. He couldn’t ignore that Naruto had somehow become as strong, and at some moments was undeniably stronger, than him. He refused to think about the fight on the rooftop, the hole in the water tank. That was his past now. He didn’t have to reflect on it ever again. He was going forwards now.

And the now was that fighting Naruto could be too time consuming and risked bringing other nin after him. The only option was to outrun him.

There was no point prolonging this _parting_ any further. He moved to his fastest speed, but had only moved a dozen yards before arms were wrapped around his chest, immediately halting him to a stop. It wasn’t any recognisable attack that Sasuke could identify. If it felt like anything, it was a _hug_. A hug he couldn’t escape from. Sasuke strained his arms against the hold but gained nothing. If anything, Naruto’s grip tightened.

Hot breath panted against the back of his neck, but the garrulous brat for once said nothing.

‘What is this?’ Sasuke asked through gritted teeth.

‘You know what this is,’ Naruto said. ‘I’m not going to let you leave.’

‘Not your choice.’

Sasuke made a more concerted effort to fight against this strange attack. He kicked backwards, jerked, even tried a head butt. There was absolutely no give in Naruto’s body. He was like pure iron. Except he wasn’t, Sasuke had punched through iron before, but he could get no purchase on Naruto at all. His own weakness angered him more than Naruto’s assault on him. He realised in a very small, but very real, part of him, that if Naruto hadn’t come after him, he would have been disappointed.

‘So, you’ve caught me. You may as well get this over with. Make your pretty little speech about friendship and loyalty and how great the village that abandoned us both is. See if you can do better than Sakura, I should warn you she raised the stakes high, promising to follow me around the world and be the slave to my passions. If she wasn’t such an ugly dog I may even have been tempted to take her up on her offer for some _mild_ amusement.’

Sasuke waited for the explosion in Naruto’s anger, his pathetic crush on Sakura and subsequent jealousy of Sasuke, was a weak spot that he intended to exploit.

But tonight was the one night that the dobe would be perfectly controlled; there wasn’t a twitch of a muscle that Sasuke could rip out against.

‘I’m glad you didn’t hurt Sakura. If you had, I would have had to hurt you. I don’t think I could’ve stopped myself.’ There was a killing threat in Naruto’s whisper that Sasuke had never heard before. Electric pulses ran up and down his spine but he couldn’t interpret the message they were sending.

‘But I know you wouldn’t have hurt her. You’re not the person you think you are, Sasuke. Don’t force yourself to be what you’re not. You’ve been scarred so deeply already, why would you add fresh wounds to your soul?’

Sasuke paused. It wasn’t what he was expecting. He focused on the arrogance of Naruto to assume to tell Sasuke what he was or wasn’t.

‘Whatever you think is going to happen, it isn’t. This part of my life is finally over. Even if you somehow manage to drag me back now, I’ll just wait for the next moment and escape again. I should have left Konoha the night that Itachi did. There’s nothing for me there. There never was.’

‘What about me? Am I nothing to you?’

Sasuke sighed. Here came the expected boring spiel about friendship and brotherhood. Unlike Naruto he knew what such bonds truly meant: one of you collapsed on the floor weeping tears of blood while the other disappeared into the shadows of the night. But it seemed he had no choice but to listen. He was trapped. At least there was the very likely possibility that Naruto would get so enthralled by the sound of his own voice that he’d release his hold on Sasuke and allow this sad show to come to its proper end.

‘Sakura isn’t ugly. You know that right, Sasuke?’

What line of attack was this? Maybe this was going to turn into Naruto not trying to prevent Sasuke from leaving, but ensuring he was going to be gone far far away and forever, allowing the fox free reign on his long-term crush.

‘I suppose not. Her level of attractiveness has never been of particular interest to me.’ Sasuke kept his voice nonchalant, waiting to see what Naruto would do or say next.

‘You’ve never been particularly interested in any of the many really really lovely girls who confess to you. Whatever Sakura did offer, you wouldn’t care, would you?’

‘Sakura is all yours. Is that what you want to hear? I’ve never returned her _feelings_. And never will. You can tell her that when she wakes up with my full blessing. Now I have somewhere to be which doesn’t involve having my lungs destroyed by your _embrace_. Or whatever this is supposed to be.’

‘Sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you.’ And as simply as that, Naruto released him and stepped backwards from him.

But not as simply as that. Sasuke found he wasn’t immediately running away from the stupidity of his teammate, his _former_ teammate.

‘That’s all you cared about in the end, then, having no competition for Sakura.’ Sasuke still didn’t run, but at least he started walking in the right direction, away from Konoha.

‘Bastard! Is that what you think of me? After everything we’ve been through, that all I’d care about is that Sakara likes you better than me?’

Naruto leapt ahead of Sasuke blocking his way. Not that it’d be difficult to walk around him but there was _something_ about the stupid brat standing there, red faced, fists clenched, somehow both glaring at Sasuke and looking embarrassed. Sasuke’s curiosity was piqued. He knew it shouldn’t be. He knew it shouldn’t matter to him at any point in his life what was going through such an unpredictable idiot’s head. But part of his new path was complete honesty with himself. And he was intrigued. He wouldn’t see Naruto again; surely he could indulge himself this last time without any harmful consequences.

‘What do you actually want to say to me, Usuratonkachi?’

‘I want to say,’ Naruto burst out but then didn’t say anything else for a long moment. He rubbed the back of his head and gazed up at the sky.

‘Hnnnn.’ Sasuke shook his head. ‘What am I doing? I’ve wasted enough of my precious time with losers.’

He strode past Naruto, but Naruto moved and grabbed Sasuke’s hand. The sudden and unexpected touch sent a tingle through Sasuke’s fingers and all the way down his arm. But he didn’t pull away.

‘I want to say, would you be more interested if a boy confessed to you? Would you be interested if _I_ confessed to you?’

Big blue eyes gazed into his. He knew that face well enough to be certain that this wasn’t one of Naruto’s ludicrous jokes, or taunts. This was real. Naruto was shy and nervous, but also hopeful.

When Sasuke spoke he was careful to control his voice and show no surprise, no emotion at all in fact. ‘I have heard you confess to Sakura too many times, and it was boring from the start. So, no, I don’t believe I would be interested in anything you could say to me.’

‘This isn’t like _that_. The things I felt about Sakura was because she was so pretty and strong and…’

‘And I’m not pretty or strong?’ Sasuke flushed at how the words spilt out of their own accord. Thankfully the idiot kept burbling on as if he hadn’t heard Sasuke speak.

‘It felt like she should be someone I should have a crush on. With you it’s different. You’re the very opposite of what I want. And that’s even before we get to the issue of you having a flat chest and the same parts as me! But you’re the one I dream of. The one I can’t stop dreaming of. And yeah, I mean _those_ sort of dreams, as well as yaknow, just the normal daydreaming sort of wondering what it’d be like to be acknowledged as your special someone thing.’ Naruto took a deep breath and stepped backwards. ‘Shall I carry on? You still haven’t said whether you want to hear this crap or not?’

‘I never want to hear your _crap_ , but I don’t believe that has ever stopped you loudly sharing whatever is rattling around in your empty head,’ Sasuke said.

‘Huh. Guess that’s the best I am going to get out of you. You have any idea how angry I am with you right now? That you could walk away from me and everything we’ve been through together, when I know I could never walk away from you. I hate, totally, absolutely hate hate hate, that your past is more important to you than any future you and I could ever have. That you sacrifice your life to Itachi who abandoned you, and ignore me who will stay by your side forever. And your hair is stupid, what did you model it on, a duck’s butt? And the expression on your face most of the time is like you’re begging me to punch you for being such an arrogant bastard. And you walk around as if you’ve got a stick stuck up your ass and that no one is worthy to breathe the same air as the worthy Uchiha Sasuke.’

He should be half way to Orochimaru by now, taking the first steps to reaching his potential and moving towards his destiny as a dark angel of vengeance. Instead he was listening to a fool ramble on and he was smiling and feeling light and happy and not wanting to be anywhere but here with Naruto. Even in the darkest moments there was something about Naruto that made the world shine. Which was a good enough reason in its own to leave, Naruto was… annoying… distracting…but he’d soon be rid of him forever so he could indulge himself in this unexpected amusement a _little_ longer.

‘When you make a love confession, it is supposed to contain _love_ , dobe. Not a list of all the things that you despise about me. This _is_ your idiotic attempt at a love confession, isn’t it? Because it is not entirely clear.’ Sasuke smirked.

‘You know exactly what I’m trying to say so I don’t think there’s any need for me to say it.’ Naruto folded his arms across his chest and pouted at Sasuke.

‘Maybe if you don’t want to elaborate any further on how much you _hate_ me, you could at least let me know how long you’ve been feeling like this?’

‘Since we kissed,’ Naruto mumbled.

‘That long?’ Sasuke laughed.

‘I’ve been trying very hard not to feel this way, bastard! Been really _really_ trying to focus on how pretty Sakura is, but you’re always there with your stupid voice and your stupid nose and your stupid eyes and your stupid…EVERYTHING! Everything about you is stupid! So it’s not something I’m happy with, having to think about your stupid body every time I go to bed and want to think about Sakura, not _you_. I want us to be comrades not…other things.’

‘Hnnnn. And it wasn’t even a real kiss that ignited this obsession in you.’ Sasuke stepped close to Naruto so he was breathing in his face. ‘Let me give you something to add fire to your dreams before I leave. It’ll keep you hot for all the long years when you won’t see me.’

He pressed his lips against Naruto’s, slipping his tongue into Naruto’s mouth.

And that was his mistake.

It was supposed to be a joke, a tease, a taunt for the ridiculousness of this whole situation, to show Naruto how much of an ignorant brat he truly was, daring to talk about being attracted to him only when he knew Sasuke was leaving and there’d be no repercussions.

Naruto’s mouth was warm and possessed a spicy-sweetness that Sasuke shouldn’t like, yet his tongue kept delving and exploring wanting to discover and taste every part of its deep wetness. And after only a small hesitation when Naruto was shock still, Naruto’s tongue began fighting back against his with a passionate eager energy that infected Sasuke’s whole being. Sasuke’s body was reacting of its own will. One hand gripped Naruto’s waist, seeking out the taut muscles hidden under his baggy clothing, another tangled through his friend’s hair marvelling at the texture of every strand in the same way his tongue was worshipping the glories of his mouth.

Naruto responded in kind, he wrapped his arms around Sasuke as if he could somehow pull Sasuke even closer into him and even then it still wasn’t close enough. At some point one of Naruto’s legs pushed between Sasuke’s separating his thighs. Sasuke moaned into Naruto’s mouth and his hips ground against Naruto as if he’d been waiting all his life for the release of this emotion.

It felt like they could stay joined together like this for the whole of the night, the whole of their lives. Then Naruto jumped backwards.

‘No. This isn’t right.’ He wiped his hand across his mouth and shook his head.

And for a moment the only response Sasuke had was the thumping of his heart, which felt so loud he was sure it could reach unconscious Sakura back in Konoha.

‘What isn’t right? You chase after me, seduce me, kiss me like no one has ever kissed me before, and then say it _isn’t right_!’ There was too much emotion in Sasuke’s voice, but for once he didn’t care, every part of him was focused on Naruto and how to get the idiot back in his arms where he obviously belonged.

Naruto beamed. ‘What that was your best kiss ever? Wow, I am really that good, to make you lose your cool? Your face is all flushed at the moment yaknow. I knew I’d be a great kisser. And did you say I _seduced_ you? How did I _seduce_ you? I wasn’t planning to _seduce_ you, I was just going to kick you back to your senses so you came home with me. I must be a natural to _seduce_ you without even trying.’ He glowed under his self-praise, but then a frown settled on his brow. ‘Flattering me doesn’t change anything, yaknow, you don’t get to kiss me like that until you do it the right way.’

Sasuke sighed heavily. ‘What’s the right way?’ He could feel the heat in his face as he asked, ‘Did you not like it when I rubbed against you?’

Naruto scrubbed at the back of his head and looked everywhere but at Sasuke. ‘I liked that just fine. I’m pretty sure you could feel how much I liked that. But, yaknow, you can’t be doing that, or anything else like that, until you’ve like told me how you feel about me. Just because I’m a guy and not a girl, doesn’t mean you can skip out all the romantic stuff.’

‘What? You want me to tell you I love you?’ Sasuke’s voice was disbelief, but Naruto leapt back into his arms.

‘You love me! Already? Am I that awesome at kissing?’ He noisily slurped his tongue over his lips. Then his expression changed from confronting overconfidence to so shy he couldn’t look at Sasuke’s face. ‘Or has it been the same for you as it has been for me? You’ve been thinking about me for ages? And your tummy does weird things when I look at you? And even when we’re fighting, you find yourself looking at my mouth and imagining what it’d feel like to kiss me properly?’

Sasuke put his hands on Naruto’s shoulders and pushed the other youth away from him.

‘No. I need to be honest with myself, and you. It’s never been like that for me.’

‘Oh. Okay. Sorry. I thought something was happening. And I kinda feel like I might have misread things. A lot. I guess I’m confused. I haven’t got any experience of anyone but you.’

‘Good. Keep it that way.’

Naruto tilted his head with wide eyed confusion at the possessive demand in Sasuke’s voice.

Sasuke sighed, He needed to get control of this situation. But he wasn’t sure how. Slowly he began trying to explain, as much to himself as Naruto.

‘I’m only realising right now, the truth. You’re the only one, the only possible one in the world, who could be more important to me than Itachi. Do you understand? You’re the one I was trying to get away from because you make me feel vulnerable. I’d die for you without hesitation. But more than that, I’d live for you. I don’t have a _crush_ on you. If you want to continue this thing you’ve started, I wouldn’t hide from it anymore. I’d let you overwhelm me. I’d forget Itachi, and you’d be my whole passion. Is that what you want? What you truly want? Because I am not sweet and I am not kind, and once I’ve chosen you I’d never be able to let you go. That is who I am, that is how my love works.’

He lightly touched the tip of Naruto’s nose to try and let the dobe know this wasn’t the type of meaningless boasting and sounding off they sometimes fell into. This was real.

‘Or I can continue on the path of my fate, what I was set on before you stopped me. I’ll kill any feelings I have. You’ll be dead to me. I am a person of extremes, it is either everything or nothing.’

‘I know who you are, Sasuke.’ Naruto’s eyes were a beautiful sky blue, but when Sasuke gazed at them now they seemed to be burning with fire as intense as anything he could create.

‘And you know who I am. I’m never going to let you walk away from me. You might escape from me, you might get lucky and have the power to beat me in the fight once, twice, a hundred times, it wouldn’t matter. I’d keep getting up again and again and again and keep chasing after you again and again and again. I’ve never known what it is like to have a family, I only know what it’s like to have you. I can’t even imagine the loss you’ve suffered, but maybe because of your grief, you’ll be able to understand that I'll do anything to avoid that loss. It’s impossible for me to let go of you, my one precious person. However many friends I have, however many people surround me, however much kindness I receive, nothing can fill the emptiness of not being with you. Just thinking about you leaving and me not being able to see you tomorrow is enough to break me like nothing else could. There’d be no option, no choice, all I could do is dedicate my everything to finding you and bringing you back home to me. Do you understand?’

‘I understand. We’re the most rare of things, a perfect match for each other.’

They stared at each other for a long moment and then they were kissing as if it had always been this way between them. This kiss was more delicate than the previous ones, it was a surprise that sent tremors through Sasuke’s whole body to discover that rough, idiotic Naruto could be this gentle. At first they just let their lips touch and caress before they started to tease their tongues together. Their hands fluttered over necks and cheeks in tender butterfly movements.

Again it was Naruto who broke off. ‘I can’t do this.’

‘What’s the problem now, Usuratonkachi? What else do I need to say to you to reassure you that this, that _you,_ are the only real thing to me now?’

Naruto rubbed the back of his head. ‘No. Um. No. I feel you’re mine. Maybe a bit too much.’ He waved a flustered hand in the direction of his crotch and Sasuke saw the unmistakable damp mark there.

‘Have you come? Just from a simple kiss.’

‘It wasn’t a _simple_ kiss. It was everything.’

Naruto looked so embarrassed and also so genuine, that Sasuke couldn’t let any of the automatic barbed comments escape from his mouth. This person was no longer just his annoying comrade, this was his boyfriend, his acknowledged love. The hate and pain that he’d thought was his only destiny melted away from him. He felt like an early spring bud that had been trapped in a frosty prison and Naruto was the sun who had warmed him and given him another option. He wasn’t certain what he’d blossom into, or even if he would blossom, but at least he had a chance now.

The meaning of his life had snapped away from murder and destruction. With that gone he was left with a childlike desire to love and be loved.

‘Yes. It was everything.’ Sasuke stroked the frown away from Naruto’s forehead. ‘Come back to my place. You can shower. I’ll cook for you. I know you’re always hungry.’

‘Can we do that? I mean, there aren’t people expecting you, who’ll come for you? Don’t we need to deal with them?’

Sasuke shrugged. ‘We’re only genin living in a village filled with powerful ninja, I am sure there’s someone around who is capable of dealing with them better than we are. We can be the ones who are protected for once. After all, tonight is special, our first date. If we don’t relax and have fun now, when will we ever be free from the fight?’

Naruto walked back to the Uchiha compound beside Sasuke, not once arguing about leaving the battle to be someone else’s problem, but protesting constantly about the fact that a first date should come before a kiss and Sasuke was going to have to work hard to make up for starting their relationship all wrong. Sasuke gave him plenty of cause to complain by regularly stopping and drawing him in for dozens more kisses before they reached his home.

Sasuke held the door open for his new boyfriend and for the first time in what felt like several lifetimes of black grief, he wasn’t struck with pangs for the family he’d never see again. Instead he watched Naruto heel off his shoes and was entirely focused on when he’d be able to steal his next kiss. Judging by the redness of Naruto’s face and the way his gaze kept flicking to Sasuke’s lips, Sasuke knew it’d be soon. Very soon.

With a happy heart and not one regret, Sasuke smiled the sweetest smile he’d smiled since he was a small child getting a piggy back from his adored brother. But none of his thoughts were on Itachi. There was no longer any room for anything but Naruto in his mind as he swooped in for another kiss from the person who was now all the destiny he ever wanted.


End file.
